Congratulations to James Lin, PharmD, ’16, on being selected as the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) Outstanding Student Member of the Year for 2015!
I2P2 Endowed Clinical Professor Don Downing presented the award to James at the May meeting of the UW School of Pharmacy Practice Board. James represents a great tradition in UW Pharmacy’s training and development of community pharmacy leaders.
In 2014, James and a cohort of student colleagues developed a business plan for Fairhaven Pharmacy, in the community of Fairhaven, an historic part of Bellingham. Their plan garnered them a top 10 placement in the national business plan competition held annually by NCPA.
To promote interest in independent community pharmacy ownership, the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and the NCPA Foundation have established the Good Neighbor Pharmacy NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition. The goal of the Competition is to motivate pharmacy students to create the blueprint necessary for buying an existing independent community pharmacy or to develop a new pharmacy. The competition links generations of pharmacists and allows opportunities to learn from each other.
The team put in countless hours of work and many trips to Bellingham to create a plan that would continue to grow the pharmacy while honoring its roots in the community. “Normally, students have to use fictional pharmacies to make their case, but the owner of Fairhaven Pharmacy, also a UW Pharmacy alumnus, Robin Johansen generously shared information with our students. They were working with real data which makes the project more compelling,” said faculty advisor Don Downing. At the conclusion of that project, James reflected, “Working on this project made me more motivated than I already was to own my own community pharmacy one day and better understand the factors I need to consider in choosing a pharmacy.”
We are so proud of James’ NCPA award as Outstanding Student Member! Congratulations!